


the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

by banditess



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Implied Emet/WoL if you squint, POV Second Person, Race Neutral WoL, So how about 5.3 huh, gender neutral WoL, no plot just feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditess/pseuds/banditess
Summary: !! HEAVY 5.3 SPOILERS !!A few weeks after the battle at the Seat of Sacrifice, you find yourself in Rak'tika on an errand and decide to visit Slitherbough. Runar, ever observant, can tell something weighs on your mind, and suggests you spend a quiet moment in the Darker. There in the darkness, you reflect on what you carry and how it burdens you.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Definitely not my first FF fic but first time publishing a XIV or a WoL-POV fic -- I've tried to make it as gender-neutral and race-neutral as possible, so hopefully WoLs of all kinds will be able to see themselves in this. (With apologies mostly to Lalafells because of height-related things.)
> 
> This is really just me word-vomiting my feelings after playing 5.3, but I think many of you can probably relate.
> 
> **Please make sure that either you have completed the MSQ for patch 5.3 or that you don't mind being spoiled for it before proceeding.** This fic does take place post-5.3.
> 
> Thank you and I hope you enjoy!

Runar hums softly as he ladles stew into your wooden bowl. It's been a few weeks since you last came to Slitherbough, when "Master Matoya" parted ways with her flock. A brief errand brought you to the Citia Swamps, and you'd have been remiss if you didn't stop by and visit your friends in the Night’s Blessed before departing. Naturally, Runar won't let you leave with an empty stomach.  
  
“We cannot hope to fully repay our debt to the Warrior of Darkness -- but I am glad that I could at least, as our representative, provide you with a good meal. And uninterrupted, for once.” Runar smiles brightly for a moment, but his shoulders quickly droop. “Though of course, your companions are sorely missed.”  
  
You nod quietly. The First feels strangely hollow to you as well, without the Scions' presence. Each of them -- not knowing when or if they would see the Source again -- found a new home and new lives here. None could argue the impact they made on the people they met. That much was clear from the emotional farewells you witnessed. In the end, there was no choice but to send them back -- it was a matter of life and death -- but it makes your heart ache just thinking about them severing themselves from the lives they worked so hard to create. You understand that pain, truly: You yourself have left your heart in so many places.  
  
_ Herein I commit the chronicle of the Traveler...  
  
_ Runar clears his throat, bringing you back to the cookfire. His brows are knit in an expression of compassionate concern. A soreness in your fingers draws your attention down, and you realize you’ve unconsciously been white-knuckling the zonureskin bag tied to your belt. It appears Runar noticed this as well; he glances at your bag before speaking again.  
  
“If something burdens you, friend, may I suggest lighting a candle in the Darker? You may not be one of us officially, but I should hope none would oppose letting the Warrior of Darkness have a quiet moment.”  
  
The candles in the Darker are available to mendicants for various reasons: meditation and worship, ceremony and memorialization. You consider this for a moment. You’re not certain how much Y’Shtola told Runar about, well, everything, when she returned to Rak'tika to get her affairs in order. Does he know what is in your bag? Does he understand why such a small bag weighs so heavily upon you? Perhaps you’ll take him up on his suggestion -- a quiet moment is always welcome.  
  
But first, stew.

\--~--

A wave of goosebumps prickles your skin as you walk the narrow passageway connecting the central Slitherbough plaza with the Darker -- the sacred space of the Night’s Blessed. Of course, your body is reacting to the markedly cooler temperature in the cavern, but there is also something else making your hair stand on end: A charged energy, your intuition telling you that this is where you are meant to be at this time.  
  
_...where you walk, my dearest friend, Fate shall surely follow…  
  
_ His dearest friend. Hearing it in your head, in his voice, and knowing it to be true, after everything that happened -- after what you  _ did _ \-- was devastating. Although you know in your heart of hearts that there was no other way, a stone of guilt has sat in your stomach since your hand released Ardbert’s axe.  
  
Since you first met Emet-Selch, you’ve been dreaming of an age long gone. Of new old friends wearing long robes and masks, like some kind of monochromatic masquerade. Dreams of what you now understand to be the world before the Sundering. But since acquiring the constellation crystals in Amaurot, your dreams have become far more detailed, more vivid.  
  
_ Remember...that we once lived...  
  
_ You are beginning to.  
  
A stack of new candles sits atop a rock at the back of the Darker. You take one from the pile and survey the room. The cavern walls glitter as they reflect the soft light of several clusters of candles. Do certain positions in the cavern have particular meanings? Runar didn’t say. You shrug to yourself -- you’ll just have to go with what feels right.  
  
There is an empty space in the center of a small grouping of candles. This seems like a good spot -- your candle will have the company of others, but still have room to breathe. As you light the candle and set it in place, you think again about the crystals at your waist. The memory of the last time you lit a candle here floats back to you. It was a memorial for the Night’s Blessed girl who had been attacked by Sin Eaters. You accompanied Ryne -- though she was still Minfilia then -- to retrieve the girl’s jade heartstone. They needed the heartstone for her funeral, you recall.  
  
You turn to the basin in the center of the cavern and walk to its side, peering over the edge and into the water below. It’s less than a yalm deep, but the surrounding darkness gives the illusion of a yawning abyss. In your mind’s eye, you see Runar gently letting the jade stone sink, symbolically returning the girl’s soul to the Sunless Sea. During the ceremony, the heartstones in the basin had taken on a brilliant gleam -- mirroring the heavens above.  
  
_...those stars shine their guiding light down upon the lives below...  
  
_ Your hand drifts back to your bag reflexively. This time, you untie it from your belt and hold it in both hands, as though it’s the most valuable thing in your possession -- and in a way, it is. In fact, it’s so valuable as to be  _ invaluable _ , the contents quite literally irreplaceable. Those who could have made more are gone now. The heavy feeling in your stomach returns. (Did it ever really leave?)  
  
Staring into the water of the Darker, you feel an urge to surrender the crystals of those whom you know to be lost: Lahabrea and Igeyorhm. Nabriales. Emmerololth. Mitron and Loghrif. Elidibus. Emet-Selch. You are the Shepherd to the Stars! Is it not your responsibility to guide these souls to the Sunless Sea, to let them be at peace in the dark? You shove your hand into the bag, removing a crystal at random. If it is one of the fallen, then you fully intend to let it sink to the bottom, to free yourself from its burden.  
  
You remove your hand from the bag. The crystal you hold is deep violet. Your hand trembles.  
  
_ Though the world be sundered and our souls set adrift…  
  
_ You can’t do it, you realize with tears in your eyes. Not yet. Perhaps this is selfish of you, but you’ve only just received this evidence of your former life, and you aren’t ready to let it go. Besides, you have a promise to keep. We only live as long as the last person that remembers us. Carefully placing the crystal back in the bag, you cinch the drawstrings shut.  
  
When you look up, you nearly jump out of your boots when you see a large, strange bird perched on the opposite side of the basin. It’s the same tall, awkward creature that has been following you around throughout your time on the First. You last saw it stalking your room in the Pendants, seemingly staring daggers through you from your windowsill. At the time, you'd thought that maybe you'd seen the last of it. Thal's balls! How did you not notice it fly in? Your mind must have truly been on another shard to have not seen it.  
  
Maybe it’s just a trick of the candlelight, but you could swear that for once the bird is not looking at you with annoyance, but with serenity. The kind of expression that says, “I have accepted my circumstances.” An odd emotion for a bird, you admit. With a sharp clench of your heart you realize it’s one you have seen before: This was the look Emet-Selch had -- melancholy but tranquil -- before he faded away. Tying the zonureskin bag back to your belt for safekeeping, you edge around the basin, towards your cloudkin visitor. It stands still as you approach and, to your utter surprise, leans in as you reach out a friendly hand, allowing you to stroke its blue-grey feathers.  
  
A small bit of joy bubbles up from inside of you and spills over into a smile. It’s a simple act, but your eyes have gone misty with tears. You take a moment to wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. When you open them again, your vision is clear -- but your visitor is gone, as mysteriously as it came. Perhaps it will stay long enough to let you say thanks next time.  
  
Running your hand along the lip of the basin, you think again about Emet-Selch’s last moments. The time leading up to your final confrontation -- with the apocalypse raging in the background, no less -- replays in your mind. His raw fury in that moment still sears your memory. But regardless of his anger, it was important to him that you knew his true name, not just the name that was bestowed upon him by the Convocation. The name of your dearest friend, who secretly defied his comrades -- your comrades -- and made a crystal to save your memories, so that you might always come back. (Maybe even come back to him, specifically? Some of the things he said to you now seem...different, with this new context.)  
  
For that matter, what was  _ your _ true name, in the time before the world burned? You wonder if that detail will ever come back to you. In its absence, the name that Hades and Hythlodaeus gifted to you is more than enough. You make your way back down the passage to the aetheryte.  
  
_ For yours is the Fourteenth seat... _

\--~--

Runar is cleaning up pots and bowls when you return. The sun, which was already setting when you entered the cavern, has departed for the day, and the moon’s light illuminates Slitherbough.  
  
“Ah, welcome back, friend. Were you able to find some solace in the darkness?”  
  
You nod affirmatively. But you have been thinking about the customs of the Night’s Blessed, you tell him. A person’s true name is not to be uttered under the light, and so all members have a second name.  
  
There’s something you’d like to share with him, you say. You hesitate, nervous despite knowing there is no reason for you to be.  
  
The name he knows you as now -- that is your name in the light. But your name in the dark, the one you should be remembered by when you’ve gone on to the Sunless Sea? That name...is Azem.  
  
You hold out the sun-orange crystal to him: your heartstone.  
  
Runar’s fangs should make his grin look intimidating, but the rest of him is so soft that it’s impossible to be threatened by him. He puts down the stack of bowls he is holding and claps his big hands to your shoulders, embracing you warmly.  
  
“I welcome you, Azem. I sincerely hope it will be some time yet before you are committed unto the hereafter -- but know that you will always have a home here with us, however meager it may be.”  
  
It's the first time someone has called you by that name, but it feels like you have been using it your entire life. Like you've put on a pair of tailor-made gloves. If just the name of your office feels this way, how will your true name feel, you wonder?  
  
"Will you stay the evening, friend? Not that I think you cannot handle the creatures of the Wood, but…" Runar says sheepishly.  
  
You take one of Runar's big hands in yours and thank him for his hospitality. Though you are a Traveler, fated to wander, you are forever grateful to the stars who light up your sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! ♥
> 
> Many of you probably already know this, but the fic title is from a line in e.e.cummings' ["[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in],"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in) which is not only one of my favorite poems, but is such a perfect EmetWoL poem (particularly post-5.3) I could scream.


End file.
